The Lifetime plan follows the popular ‘lifestyle’ strategy of investing common with many modern pensions. It aims to match the investments inside your pension fund to your age - helping you maximise growth while you're younger, before switching to safer investments as you approach retirement, protecting the value of your pot as you prepare to withdraw.The Lifetime plan is a great way to save if you don't want to manage and adjust your pension as you grow older - or if you'd simply like Penfold to give you a helping hand.To help you get the most from your pension, we break things down into 3 different stages.

Stage 1: Focus on growth

The first part of this plan is all about growing your money. Your pension contributions will be invested in a fund with a higher proportion of 'riskier' investments, such as equities (a stake in a company), to maximise your return on investment.

Stage 2: Prepare for retirement

Next, we'll adjust your investments to get you ready for retirement.From age 60, the Lifetime plan switches to a less risky approach. Your pot is still growing, but your money will start to move away from things like stocks and shares to more stable investments like bonds and government gilts.

Stage 3: Protect your pot

The final stage of our Lifetime plan tries to preserve the value of your pot with safe, less volatile investments. You can normally expect to see even fewer ups and downs in the value of your pension at this stage.Of course, part of your pot will remain invested in to make sure you’re still seeing some growth. This also helps protect you from losing value as the cost of living rises with inflation.